Danish Dynamite Blow Up

January 28, 2013

The early morning rain may have made some nervous but by the time the first whistle blew and the ball was kicked off, the clouds parted and the sun shined down the first-ever international match in Tucson.

Denmark cruised to an easy 4-0 win and by the end of the day the weather concerns from the morning were just a distant memory. Check out the photo gallery from game here and check out some quotes from players and coaches below.

Canada head coach Colin MillerOn the team’s performance:“I think against a very good Danish side, Neil. We’re disappointed certainly in the manner of the goals that we gave away. There were aspects of the game that we were pleased with, we corrected one or two things at halftime. You can’t give players at this level football as much time as we gave them in the first half and that was clearly evident; it was boys against men at some times, during the first half for sure, but yea an incredibly valuable learning experience for everyone and you we have to you know I want to watch the dvd and see the game before I go into a lot of detail but yea absolutely disappointed with the score line.”

On Miller’s message to the fans:“I would say we have to be patient here it’s a … we have no divine right to think that we are number one in the world. For some reason in Canada we seem to think that we are at that level. We’re not. Let’s call the spade the spade, we are not at that level, we need to, there is so much work needed to be done and here today was probably the first step towards that work being done in many many ways so, the people are gonna slaughter us in blogs and all that sort of stuff. … Let’s try and give people a little benefit of the doubt, the players they’re not fed at the moment, and you’re coming into an environment where it’s warm all of a sudden, they’re playing against a world class opposition, yea it’s a younger team, but we have a younger team and their youth and upbringing is far superior to anything that we can offer in Canada, so let’s put things in perspective, that’s what my message would be, let’s give whoever it is is gonna be the national team coach, give them the opportunity to rebuild something and then when it’s been rebuilt and we’ve brought in a mixture of our senior guys and our top goal guys from Europe … Then we can start to be critical, but to just say “Oh, Canada gets hammered four nil” ugh, that’s an easy way. Let’s start to think in a way a bit more productive about how we go about it.”

On the Danish squad:“Yeah, you work with these sort of players and they’re special, you know, they’re absolutely special, and, yea, just, yea they’re special players. It was my privilege to be in charge of our national team today and to be in the dugout across from someone like Mr. Olsen it was a pleasure for me, and they are a first class organization and we can learn from them, for sure.”

Canadian captain Terry DunfieldOn the team;s performance:“I think our performance got better as the game went on; I think a couple of the guys were a little bit, had a bit of, sort of, a couple of nerves earlier on which led to goals but as the game went on I think we settled down and we were able to show some good stuff going forward.”

On advice to younger players during the match:“I think you gotta give a lot of credit to Denmark, they were very good on the day and were able to stretch us but as the game went on we did ok. I think the most important thing now is that the players learn from today and come Tuesday we don’t make the same mistakes.”

On the learning process for younger players:“(The learning process) can be (painful), but on the other hand we probably have six years to get it right, five six years; so we’re at the beginning of the cycle right now and players are getting opportunities and it’s up to them to take it and if they are able to they move on with the team, if not they don’t.”

Dwayne De Rosario
On the team’s performance:“Yea, I mean, I think the positive is the learning experience, what not to do and what we could do better. You know, we’re playing a very experienced Danish team; all of them play domestically and represent the country so, you know, you can see the understanding that they have and you can see our lack of understanding; but, you know, like I said, there’s definitely work to be done this is the first stepping stone towards that and, you know, we just gotta improve, look back on the game and see what we need to improve on.”

On giving the Danes too much respect:“Oh defense, I mean, well at the beginning we were bright I thought we were good we got into their end but one chance down in our end and it was a goal, and, you know, at that time it was just like, it was too easy and I don’t think we had enough pressure on the ball defensively and enough tenacity in the back so, you know, we picked it up as the game went on but by that time we were three nothing down going into half and as you know when you play against an experienced team like that they’re gonna punish you and we got punished.”

Denmark coach Morten Olsen:On what he took from the match:“I think it is very important that you see that the players understand the game that we want to play tactically; of course you have the possibilities of this field. Normally we play games we know everything about the opponent, that is our job as coaches, but this time it was not possible because the Canadian team have been building a good team, they have a good coach team. But after five minutes of playing they knew what kind of team they were up against and what kind of key they had to use to break this team down so that was important that you see as coaches that there is no surprising, because many of players have been in the A team, they know the kinds of skills they want to play. Tactically I thought we played a good game. Defensively we don’t have so much troubles. Now tactically we found the solution but technically we weren’t always 100%.

On the goal of playing friendlies abroad:“It’s mostly to play against different kinds of players and different kinds of tactics far away from our normal surroundings that’s good experience, surely for our young guys.”